substack post xo
a lil musing on my anxiety about how men are less likely to touch a canine than a girl.
some days i’m more afraid of men than others, and a dog is my free pass to the earth.
fear is the summer lake house i returned to every year. the only constant structure in my life. the gas station on the corner that has been decaying since you graduated kindergarten and started rattling off the rising numbers gracing the sign because suddenly you recognized the meaning of the shapes, but not the value.
one day i wake into the quiet, padded by the bubble of the creek outside a bed and breakfast window, and i sprawl across the bed alone, and i am safe. one day the mountains guard me so steadily that i take off my clothes deep in the mountain woods, alone in the sunlight shadowed by glowing yellow aspen leaves, and nearly fall asleep in the moss, delirious with peace. the next, i am swallowed by a forest, and my throat tightens with every step.
last month i let the lover take me to the woods for a couple days and we didn’t see or hear another human until we decided to change that by driving 30 minutes to the nearest restaurant. it was a joke made out of trust, but still— “ah, is this when you kill me, secluded in the woods?!” i gently bit his shoulder and still, i sent my mom my location. i walked through a darkness that coated the earth invisible, and me, a walking moron, slow and careful, waiting for my eyes to adjust in the complete blackness. when i finally looked up, i looked for a light we had carelessly left on, only to realize the leaves were not lit up- the stars were simply so big. i wanted to cry, and instead i said, thank you. thank you. my anxiety had nothing to do with the man i had fallen in love with, no, I imagined a stranger strolling up to our camp, or crag, and having their way, yet knew deep to my core that it would never happen, for we had two dogs with us, and a man, and whiteness. the canine x white male privelege settled like a dust over me that if i reached to brush it off, my vulnerability as a young woman would arise, and I feared I could never give this experience to myself alone. I felt dependant on the living things around me in order to show up as someone who deserved to be there, outside, under the stars. the peace that arises with the stillness and independent aliveness of nature is both the comfort and the threat; to be both comforted and concealed and revealed. of course, this trip with this person was simply lovely— and to soak in full trust is a gift. love love love. gratitude threads itself through my bones.
tonight, the sun was beginning its descent and the earth softened— softening leaves and a pastel sky rippling a mirror into the calm lake. birds. breeze. balmy air. safe. but still— a safe lake may still be a lake i have never before been; i did not know the trails, and i was alone. i could not predict where the origins of a runner’s pounding footsteps, nor the husky voices of strangers discussing their favorite time to bike trails. harmless. mysterious. i crouched beside the water and pet my dog, my anxiety morphing into a squirrel rattling leaves in the background, and i understood that this dog is often my access point to the outdoors when i am alone. i love the outdoors, i crave it, i am healed by it. but still, someday when my anxiety kisses the back of my neck, this dog is truly the only way i can get out there, because then i am not alone and then i am not so vulnerable. if i did not have this dog beside me, i would not be outside, in the woods, beside a new lake, watching the sun set.
and is that really true? is that it? a person is less likely to mess with a canine than another person? if a girl dies in the forest, and no one is around to witness it, did she ever really matter? wonderful. these are hunches i am too offended to really think about. i let them go.
i write this instead. i spread out in my gratitude journal instead. i text my lover i love you and let my dog snuggle on my bed instead, though he is often not allowed. i meditate on the dogs, the lovers, the friends planting flowers at the altar of my fear. grace overgrown ‘til fear becomes nothing but the frame giving shape to all the bravery and gratitude rooting a network beneath the soil i walk on those days i am more afraid of men than others.
